Stone Angel
by Muses' Advocate
Summary: Ten years after Voldemort's defeat, a woman kneels in the cemetary, her red hair fading against the soft backdrop of autumn leaves. (One-shot)


AN: written for a challenge in the LJ community "30minutefics". The challenge? Write a ficlet in thirty minutes or under telling what's happened 1o years after the fall of Voldemort. I wrote this in 27 :)

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She had always loved the fall, that short month or two of apprehension before the summer dies and winter takes over. She loved the crisp smell of the flaming leaves, the colors- crimson and gilt sliding across soft soil and brittle grass. When she was younger, she would sit at her for hours, tiny little-girl tears running down her chubby cheeks. Her mother would sit next to her, rub her back, and nod a sympathetic head as she gave the usual lament:

"They're all dead, mama."

But she was older now, hardened by war, and the mere sight of a few crumbling leaves aroused nothing in her but scorn for who she once was. Today, though- today she knelt at the headstone that entombed a little bit of her. The spidery, gothic lettering bore only four letters: Hero. The other side of the granite slab was saved for trivialities, birth date and name and the like.

She hadn't given her heart to a name.

She had given it to a savior.

Sighing, she rose to her feet, knees trembling and weak. She wouldn't cry. Not this time. She sniffed in the cold wind and held her hand in front of her face for a moment, regaining control. Swiftly, almost harshly, she dropped the slender white lily atop his grave and fled.

Pounding footfalls matched the pounding in her ears. Exhausted, she collapsed on a tiny marble bench, the kind you an only find in a cemetery, only to realize whose it was and jump up again.

_Neville Longbottom_

_Beloved Friend and Son_

_Sleep Peacefully_

Below that was a tiny inscription; birth and death.

Death. It was all around her, from the fading leaves to the painfully harsh grey of the headstones against muted autumn colors.

She ran again, desperate for salvation, names whipping at her from the stones she stumbled over.

_Padma Patil, Dennis Creevey, Colin Creevey, Luna Lovegood, Draco Malfoy, Susan Bones..._

The names blurred together, tears finally descending her cheeks as she realized she was in the student memorial. Her friends, class mates... all gone. All dead.

Now she slowed, labored by grief, just before a huge stone angel. She didn't notice it at first as she bent over, hands on her knees, breathing harsh and irregular as her tears shattered on the ground. Slowly she straightened; slowly she came to look directly at the names. It's the first time; she would shy from their names as f they were the sun, as if the simple engraved words would burn her.

_Weasley_, it reads. Simple. Understated. Then, again, that accursed word- _Heroes. _Then come the names. _Arthur, William, Charles, Perceus, Frederick, George, Ronald. _Then nothing. A blank space. She wants to throw herself down at the feet of this immobile angel, to lie at rest- at peace- with her family.

But she can't.

She has life, yet, a gift afforded only to her, not...not to them. She must live for them, she decides.

So, blank-eyed and stony-faced, the turns and walks calmly, diligently back through the Student's memorial. The tears have stopped now, such a meager show of grief. She caresses each headstone she comes across, kissing her fingers and alighting them on the names of her fallen comrades.

Finally, she comes back to His grave.

The headstone is small, she realizes. Smaller than it should be, than for what it represents. Then again, she supposes, he would have wanted it this way. He never did like being famous. She straightened the lily she had brought before and smiled in his memory.

"I miss you," she whispered, her voice lost in the wind.

Slow and deliberate, she walked back to the ornate gates of the graveyard, her head held high. Her mother waited for her there; Molly Weasley didn't waste an instant, wrapping her daughter into a hug as Ginny sobbed into her shoulder. Molly gave her a watery smile and helped her into the Ministry car, something Minister Shacklebolt gifted willingly when Ginny had mentioned a visit to the memorial.

The silence of the front seat was only interrupted by a tiny, girlish voice saying through tears:

"They're all dead, mama."


End file.
